As part of the “Mesoamerica Without Hunger” initiative, a project was implemented in schools in southern Belize to improve food and nutrition security as well as to encourage healthy eating habits for those communities, a project that extends across the region to include, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, and the Dominican Republic, as well as other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean of which Belize is the first Caribbean country to sign.

The program, which was introduced on April 2016, was officially launched on Thursday, November 17, 2017 at the Conference Room on the National Agriculture and Trade Show Grounds in Belmopan during a ceremony which featured representatives from the ministries of health and agriculture as well as the Mexican Ambassador to Belize. There, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed which will extend the project countrywide.

So far, a total of four Roman Catholic schools from rural areas in Southern Belize will benefit from the initiative. Those schools are those in Pueblo Viejo, Santa Elena, Santa Cruz, and San Luis. As part of the ‘Mesoamerica Without Hunger’ initiative, Mexico is providing financial and technical support from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations by strengthening the existing food programs in the school.

Jose Alpuche, CEO, Ministry of Agriculture, considers the launching the third phase of the program. Besides the feeding program, the ministry ventured into other areas of development but saw some level of difficulty but according to Alpuche, the feeding program has been welcomed by the communities. Besides the feeding program, there was also the implementation of a gardening program that has since blossomed with the aid of the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation (AMEXCID).